Lost
by jane0904
Summary: Next in the Mal/Freya 'verse. Taking on board a young woman, Mal and the crew learn more about the Companions Guild. Thank you for reading. Epilogue up now.
1. Chapter 1

They'd landed here because Kaylee had wanted to make some minor repairs to Serenity's fuel feed system.

Although the way she'd put it was, "Cap'n, if we don't put down now, we're gonna explode into a billion itty bitty pieces, and I won't be able to put her back together again."

Hank had immediately changed course and set the Firefly down on this moon.

"How come you didn't fix it on Phoros?" Mal wanted to know.

"Because it weren't broken on Phoros," his mechanic said brightly.

"How long d'you need?" He watched her taking off all sorts of important looking parts from his engine.

"Won't know until I see what the problem is, Cap'n."

"I thought you said it was minor!"

"I didn't want to worry you."

"You also said we could blow up."

She looked at him. "Cap'n, unless you plan on helping, and I don't reckon you do, can you just leave me to get on with it?"

"Fine," Mal said. "You just …" He waved a hand at the heart of his ship. "… get on with it."

"_Xie xie_, Cap'n," Kaylee said with a grin and returned to her work.

"So we gonna explode?" Jayne asked as Mal stepped into the galley. "I don't wanna explode."

"Not today," Mal assured him.

"Good. Got things I wanna do before that happens. Lot of skirt out there."

"I ain't even gonna dignify that with an answer," Mal said, pouring a coffee and sitting down, although he did have a mental flash of Jayne and a queue of women stretching all the way to the horizon. He shuddered slightly as he sat down. Freya gave him a quick smile as if she could read his uncomfortableness off the back of his brain, which she probably could. He smiled back.

"So am I going to get to Persephone in time for my appointments?" Inara asked.

Mal looked down the table at her. "Better ask our genius mechanic," he advised. "Although with the way she was taking us apart, I think you'd be wise to make your apologies."

"This is the third time this month I've had to cancel clients," Inara said with a trace of asperity in her voice.

"We go where the work is, and if it inconveniences you then you have my sincere regrets. But this time it weren't exactly my fault."

Inara glared at him then sighed. "No. I suppose it isn't."

"Thank you for your very gracious acceptance," Mal said dryly.

There was a heavy pause for a moment, then they all laughed. It had sounded so like it used to, before Freya, and it brought back memories.

"Maybe you can just rearrange," Mal suggested. "I'm sure they'll understand, seeing as you're in such demand."

"I'll speak to them," Inara agreed. "And you're right, of course. If they won't wait, they probably shouldn't be on my books anyway."

"Damn right." Mal looked around at the rest of his crew. "So. Looks like we've got some unexpected time off. What're we all planning on doing with it?"

"I had been considering rewiring the vid," Hank offered. "I'm sure I can get more range out of it. Got a coupla ideas I want to try."

"I've got Bethany to look after," River said. "She takes so much time …" She sounded so like a mother that Mal had to smile.

"Well, you do that, little albatross." He looked around the table. "And the rest of you?"

"Inventory," Simon said. "Once we get to Persephone there's some supplies we need, and I'd really like to –"

"Doc, we're stuck here for a while," Mal interrupted. "You can do that any time. Doesn't anyone have anything _not_ usual to do?"

They all looked at each other, then Zoe spoke for them. "What were _you_ planning on doing, sir?"

Mal smiled, glad someone had finally asked. "Treasure hunting."

Jayne sat up. "Treasure? What treasure?"

"I checked this place out on the Cortex. There's stories of a transport ship crashed nearby, carrying gold, jewels, fabulous artefacts. Course, most of it was salvaged, but –"

"Gold?"

"Gold, Jayne," Mal confirmed. "So I thought I might go take a look see, just in case they missed something."

"How far?" Hank asked.

"'Bout half a day by mule. Have to stay overnight, come back tomorrow." He grinned. "Make likes it's an adventure. So who's with me?"

Jayne immediately held up his hand. "I'm in."

"The vid can wait," Hank added quickly.

"Doc?" Mal asked. "How 'bout you? You look like you could do with some fresh air."

"I don't know." Simon shook his head a little. "I've been wealthy. Gold doesn't exactly have the same attraction -"

"Simon, you got a little girl to provide for," Mal pointed out. "And a soon to be wife."

"Okay." Simon smiled. "Should be fun. I used to go hiking with the other students at MedAcad."

"Great." Mal turned to look at his first mate. "Zoe?"

"Someone has to stay with the ship, sir," the dark beauty said. "In case you all get lost."

"Ain't gonna get lost," Mal blustered. "I know exactly where I'm going. I _never_ get lost."

"No, sir?" Her dark eyes glittered humorously.

Mal stared then backed down a millimetre. "Ok. Hardly ever. But we ain't gonna get lost this time."

"Well, I'm not coming," Inara said. "The idea of going hundreds of miles across a desert to look for something that isn't there is, well, childish."

"That's why the menfolk want to do it," Freya said. "Gives them a chance to relive their youth."

Mal glared at her. "I take it you ain't coming, then?"

"I think I'd get in the way of the male bonding," she said, putting her hand on his.

"I was kinda hoping –"

"No, you all go. We can have a nice girlie time together and talk about you to our hearts' content."

"You do that anyway."

"Ah, but not in such explicit detail."

He looked into her dark eyes and grinned. "If you're sure."

"Go," she said, smiling herself. "Have fun. Who knows, you might bring back something wonderful."

-x-

The hover mule hurried across the desert towards the distant hills, and Mal was enjoying the feel of the breeze in his hair.

"Shoulda landed Serenity closer," Jayne complained.

"Come on," Mal laughed. "It's an adventure."

"Or we coulda brought the shuttle."

"Jayne, you could get off and walk."

"I was just saying –"

"I know what you were just saying. But this is supposed to make it more fun. What fun would it be in getting there in ten minutes?"

"Might be rich quicker."

"I doubt there's anything there," Simon said, pushing his hair back into place for the fifteenth time. "If this was on the Cortex, other scavengers would have long since picked it clean."

"You calling us scavengers, doctor?" Mal asked.

Simon sighed. "You want _me_ to get off and walk?"

"No. Just asking." Mal grinned. "'Sides, it ain't exactly the reason we're going."

"Yes it is," Jayne put in.

"It's gonna be fun."

"Is that an 'or else' hanging in the background?" Hank asked, steering around a small outcrop.

"Does there have to be?"

"You know they're going to be ripping us to shreds back there, don't you?"

"Probably," Mal agreed. "Getting all our neuroses out into the light of day."

"Who said I was neurotic?" Hank glanced over his shoulder.

"Hank, you ain't the only one," Mal said, laughing, clapping the pilot on the shoulder. "As I'm sure Freya is bound to be telling everyone about now."

"Just so long as it stays amongst them."

"So how did the date go?" Simon asked. "I never really got the chance to ask."

"Mal, you know that 'getting off and walking' scenario?" Hank said.

-x-

The sun was setting as they reached the crash site, throwing long shadows from the wreckage.

"Better get ourselves set up before it gets dark," Mal said, looking around. "I reckon we should make camp in the lea of that section of bulkhead."

A breath of wind moaned around the debris and Jayne looked up. "So did anybody die in this?"

Mal nodded. "The whole crew were wiped out. Didn't get a chance to get to the escape pods, apparently."

"Are they … still here?"

Mal looked at him in surprise. "I doubt it. Probably taken away when they salvaged the cargo. Why, Jayne, you scared?"

"I never said that," the big man said, then jumped as Hank touched him on the arm.

"Looks to me like you're afraid of ghosts," the pilot said.

"I ain't afraid," Jayne said firmly. "Just don't like the idea of bodies underfoot."

"Then I think I know what we'll be talking about this evening, once we get the fire going," Mal said, grinning widely.

-x-

"… and it is said that the operating theatre is always cold, no matter what the temperature should be, and, on a still night, you can hear the clank of the old gurney being wheeled inside, and a scream cut off in mid wail as the door swings slowly shut." Simon let his voice fall away, then sat back.

"That was … pretty good, doctor," Mal said, surprised.

"Ghost stories," Jayne said again. "Why'd we have to be telling ghost stories?"

"Appropriate, don't you think?" Hank said, leaning over and slapping him on the back. "Out here, in the middle of nowhere, in the dark … whoooooooo," he moaned softly.

Jayne reached round and tried to hit him, but he dodged back in time.

"Can we not fight?" Mal asked. "Like having to deal with a coupla kids here."

"It's good practice, Mal," Simon said. "For when Bethany gets older."

"Are you saying I'm like a girl?" Jayne asked, bristling.

"Would I do that?" Simon asked, his face blank.

"Yeah."

"What part of not fighting didn't you two get?" Mal asked.

"Kids," Hank said, smiling benevolently.

Jayne glared at him and stood up. "I'm gonna get some sleep," he said, stalking away from the fire towards his sleeping bag. "Wanna be up early to find me that treasure."

"You know," Hank said, watching him go, "I really wish I'd thought to pack some practical jokes."

"He'd've killed you," Mal pointed out.

"And Zoe'd have killed him for killing me." Hank beamed, then his smile faltered. "Course, I wouldn't have been around to enjoy it …"

Mal's lips twitched. "I'm sure she'd have made sure it was long and painful."

"Long as she did," Hank agreed.

"So how _did_ the date go?" Simon asked. "You still haven't told us."

"And I don't intend to," Hank said firmly. "That's between me and Zoe. 'Sides, you were too busy yourself playing that mean joke on Kaylee."

"It wasn't mean!" the young doctor insisted.

"You made her think you were going to fight over her."

Simon shrugged. "Okay, maybe it was. But I was mad."

"I'm still surprised she said yes."

"And you're changing the subject."

Hank started to get to his feet. "Looks like the fire needs some more kindling," he said deliberately, then his head jerked up as he heard something. "What was that?" he asked.

"What?" Mal looked around. "I didn't hear anything."

"Like a moan."

Simon sighed. "I thought we'd finished with the ghost stories."

"No, I ain't kidding. I'm sure I heard … there it is again."

This time they all heard the sound.

"Must be the wind," Mal said.

"There ain't none," Hank said. He was right – the night was still.

"What the ruttin' hell was that?" Jayne asked, coming back into the firelight with his sleeping bag clutched in his arms.

It came again, a definite moaning.

"It sounds human," Simon said, scrambling up. "Someone hurt."

"Out here?" Jayne asked.

"Spread out," Mal ordered, grabbing the torches from the pack and handing them out. "If it is someone hurt, they're gonna need our help."

They moved off into the darkness, each trying to follow the sound, until Hank shouted, "Over here!"

Mal got to him first. He was kneeling beside a figure on the ground, looking like nothing more than a rock, with sand and dirt accumulated on one side.

"I kinda fell over him," Hank explained. "Otherwise I'd never've seen him."

Simon went down onto his knees in the sand, turning the body over. "It's not a him. It's a girl," he said, checking her vitals. "And she's alive. At least for the moment." He ran practised hands over her arms and legs. "She has fractures, and quite possibly internal injuries."

Mal nodded. "Hank, get onto Serenity and get Freya to bring the shuttle," he ordered.

Hank ran to the mule and the com.

"How the hell did she get here?" Jayne asked, looking around. "We ain't seen no ships or nothing."

"Doc?" Mal asked.

"I think she'd been here a few days, from the general dehydration." He opened the bottle of water and moistened one of the swabs from his bag, laying it gently on the girl's lips. "That's my main worry. If we don't get enough fluids into her, her body will go into shock and she'll die."

"She looks like she's been beaten up," Mal said, looking at the damage to her face.

"I believe she has." He concentrated on his new patient. "Pretty convincingly, and by someone who knew what he was doing."

Hank ran back. "She's on her way."

"Good," Mal said. "I want to know what's been going on here."


	2. Chapter 2

The women were waiting as Hank brought the shuttle in, barely having docked before Simon had the door open.

"Honey, do you have –"

Kaylee held out the stretcher and he smiled. "Thanks." He disappeared back inside and a minute later Jayne came out backwards, manoeuvring the girl through the hatch. Mal had the other end, and Simon was at her side.

"Get the infirmary ready," Mal said to Freya, who nodded and ran off down the steps.

"Who is she?" Inara asked, looking down at the teenage girl's face as she was carried past.

"She's got no ident on her," Hank said, coming out of the shuttle. "Nothing except this." He held out a small piece of metal. "No idea what it is." He hurried down the steps.

Inara took it, turning it over in her fingers, then glanced sharply at Jayne and Mal lifting the stretcher carefully down the last few steps towards the infirmary.

Zoe looked at the Companion. "Do you recognise it?" she asked.

"I … don't think so," Inara said slowly, handing it over.

Zoe looked at it lying in the palm of her hand, an oblong of dull grey, the numbers 9503 inscribed on one side, and some form of glyph on the other. "Some kind of dog tag?"

"Maybe. Probably." Inara flashed a smile and followed the others.

"Don't you believe her?" Kaylee asked, standing close to Serenity's first mate.

"Not sure," Zoe admitted. She glanced at River. "Can you pick anything up?"

River shook her head. "Not from either of them. But Inara's been practicing."

"Practicing?"

"Building walls to keep me out." River wasn't embarrassed in any way, just stating the facts.

"You can do that?"

"I can teach you if you want."

"Do I have things I don't want you to read?"

"Hank …"

Zoe glared at her while Kaylee stifled a giggle.

-x-

Freya scrubbed up to help Simon, while Mal stood in the corner, ready to assist when needed.

"I don't know how she survived as long as she has," the young medic said, looking at the scans. "She's got severe bruising internally, some bleeding … I'll need to operate to stop them."

"She's so young."

"Seventeen, eighteen. Something like that." Simon turned back to the medbed.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Actually, I think Mal will be first." He looked up. "The bones in her arm and leg have started to mend – we need to re-break them to align them properly, otherwise she'll be crippled."

"Re-break?" Mal repeated. He wasn't squeamish, couldn't be after seeing what he'd seen in the war, but to calmly speak of breaking a young woman's bones, of deliberately …

"We don't have a choice."

"No, doc, I see that." He moved closed to the bed. "Tell me what to do."

-x-

Kaylee stood next to Zoe outside. "How could they just leave her there?" the young mechanic was asking. "It was luck we landed, even more that the Cap'n'd take it into his head to go treasure hunting. If they hadn't found her …"

"She'd be dead," Zoe agreed. "Someone wanted this girl dead, but weren't brave enough to kill her."

"You think that's it? They didn't have the courage?"

Zoe shrugged. "I can't see why else they'd leave her here. It was sadism, pure and simple."

"That ain't pure," Kaylee said darkly.

"No, but it's very simple." Hank stirred, leaning on the handrail from the cargo bay. "I've known men who could do that. Beat up on a woman and then leave her."

"This was more than just a beating," Zoe said slowly. "This was methodical."

"You think she was tortured?"

"I don't know."

"But surely they'd only do that if they wanted something from her," Hank said. "She's so young, what the _diyu_ could she know?"

There was the sound of a crack like a gunshot, and Zoe glanced down at Kaylee, hoping she hadn't realised what it was, but the paleness of her face suggested she did. "_Mei-mei_, you'd better get back to the engine. Mal's likely to want to get off this rock soon as we can."

"It's going to be a day at least, yet," Kaylee said, aching to be away from that awful sound. "I meant it when I said we needed to be grounded. I ain't got the part I need so I'm having to –"

"Then go do it," Zoe interrupted.

Kaylee nodded, hurrying up the stairs towards her own, much more peaceful domain.

"Was that what …" Hank began.

Zoe nodded. "If she'd been like that for a few days, Simon would have had no choice."

Hank's face went white. "Zoe, I don't think …" He stared at her, willing her to understand it wasn't cowardice on his behalf, only compassion.

"Best you be getting back to the bridge. See if you can figure out a way to tell you dumped her here."

Hank exhaled with relief. "I'll be there, if anyone needs me."

Zoe smiled a little at him, and he darted from the room. From inside the infirmary came the sound of a second bone breaking.

-x-

Jayne, in his bunk, heard the noise and shivered. Not right, not doing that. He pulled Vera from her roost and starting to take her apart, consoling himself with the routine. "Ruttin' ghost stories," he muttered. "Ruttin' doctor. And that _qingwa cao de liumang_ of a captain. Takin' us off …" He continued to talk, just letting his mouth run on as he made sure his weapons were ready.

-x-

Inara stared at the metal tab in her hand. It couldn't be true. It wasn't possible.

"What isn't?"

Inara looked up guiltily, see River in the doorway. The young psychic was staring at her, her dark eyes huge in the light.

"What isn't what?"

"Possible."

"Where's Bethany?" the Companion asked, trying to draw herself together.

"She's asleep." River stared at her. "You know who this girl is."

"I don't."

"You think you do."

Inara stared at her, willing the walls within her mind to stay strong. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"If you didn't you wouldn't build defences like that. But if I wanted I could bring them crashing down around you."

The other woman shuddered, well aware of what River was capable. "It isn't your affair," she said softly.

"Mal wants to know who she is. Why someone did that to her."

"Can't you find out for him?"

River shook her head. "Her shields are much more impressive than yours, and she's still unconscious." She pointed to the metal tab. "What is that?"

Inara glanced down at it, still lying in the palm of her hand. "River, if I tell you …"

"It isn't me you need to tell." The girl turned on her heel. "When they've finished, you have to tell everyone."

-x-

Simon finished suturing his incision, dropping the forceps and needle back into the bowl, the scissors following a moment later. Carefully he pressed the dressing Freya held out to him in place.

"Well, doctor?" Mal asked.

"I've done what I can." He checked the bags dripping into the girl's arm. "I'm rehydrating her, giving some nourishment, and I think I caught all the internal bleeds. There's nothing I can do about the broken ribs, but her arm and leg should be all right."

"What about her mental state?" Freya asked, watching him strip the gloves from his hands.

"That I can't say. It would be an ordeal anyway to have gone through what she did, but then to be abandoned in the desert …" He lifted the blanket carefully to show them her knees. "I'd say she dragged herself to where we found her, trying to get to shelter. Her hands are skinned almost to the bone. Although how she did that with those injuries …"

"She must be very strong," Mal said quietly.

"I hope so."

"Can you tell how long it took? To do this, I mean."

"Why?" Simon asked, surprised.

"I'm just trying to figure out if it was long-term abuse, or if someone just took a serious dislike to her."

"Mal, they'd have to really hate her to leave her on this moon."

"I conjure you're right. And that opens up a whole new set of possibilities." He nodded towards the girl again. "So, which is it?"

"I …" Simon paused. "It's difficult to be sure, but if you pushed I'd say these were done pretty much all at the same time. There's no sign of prolonged abuse." He lifted one of the girl's hands. "In fact, I'd say she was from a privileged home."

"What makes you think that?" Freya asked.

"Her nails are manicured, her hands well cared for. Until now she's not been malnourished, and she more than likely kept herself fit."

"Was she raped?" Mal asked.

Freya glanced at him, but it was an honest question.

Simon answered just as honestly. "Not that I can see. She's not a virgin either, but there's no indication she's been forced … no, not raped."

"Which is equally strange." Mal tightened his lips slightly. "Maybe a kidnap gone wrong?"

"Perhaps. But we won't know for sure until she wakes up."

"Will she?"

"That, Captain, is in the hands of God at the moment."

"I'd rather it was in yours, doctor." He strode out of the infirmary.

"Does he really think like that now?" Simon asked. "I thought he had come to terms –"

"With God?" Freya shook her head. "Not quite. It seems to be more of a love/hate relationship." She looked down and moved a stand of hair gently from the girl's face. "She's pretty."

"How can you tell?" Simon asked in surprise.

"Bone structure. If you look beyond the injuries …" She glanced up. "Maybe Mal's right, and this is a kidnap gone wrong. If it is, she might be on the Cortex."

"No-one's going to recognise her from this."

"No, but maybe River can draw her."

"Take away the injuries?"

"Maybe."

"It's worth asking."

Kaylee stopped by the door. "Inara wants us all in the galley," she said, her eyes darting to the girl on the medbed. "Says she's got something she needs to tell us."

"You go," Simon said to Freya. "I need to stay here."

-x-

"So?" Mal asked, standing at the head of the table, his arms crossed. "What do you know that we don't?"

Inara tossed the metal tab onto the wood. "This. I recognise it."

Mal was surprised. "Why didn't you say before?"

Inara glanced at River. "I … wasn't sure."

"How could you not be …" Mal took a deep breath then exhaled noisily. "Okay, we can get into that later. So what is it?"

Inara looked around the table at the others. "It's a Companion demerit."

"A what?"

Zoe picked up the piece of metal as Inara spoke. "It's issued to Companions who have failed in some way, either as a warning, or as a final dismissal."

"Can you tell which one?" Zoe asked.

Inara was very uncomfortable. "It's … not usually something that's discussed outside the Guild," she said. "And that number …."

"And?" Mal asked impatiently. "What does it signify?"

"The number – 9503 – indicates the infringement." She stopped.

Mal was getting angry. "Inara, just spit it out, will you?"

"It's … for a child. Whoever this belonged to, she had a child without the permission of the Guild." She looked down at her hands.

"But that girl …" Mal shook his head. "She ain't old enough to be a Companion."

"Then maybe she's the child," Freya suggested from the chair next to him.

"It might not be either," Hank put in. "Maybe she stole it. If she was a thief, it could explain why they did what they did."

"Nothing explains that, nor condones it," Mal said firmly.

"I didn't say it did." Hank bristled with indignation.

"And what about the symbol?" Zoe put in quickly. "On the reverse." She held it up so everyone could see. "Looks like a running animal of some kind."

"It's a tiger," Inara explained. "It indicates she was barred from ever calling herself a Companion again."

"Could they do that?" Kaylee asked. "I mean, make someone not be a Companion no more?"

"The rules are very strict, and any infringement …" Inara sighed. "Yes, they could. And if the infraction was severe enough, all the accounts in that person's name would be withdrawn, all support taken away."

"But people leave," the young mechanic insisted. "Nandi did. And Saffron …"

"Leaving isn't the same, _mei-mei_. That's a choice, and any Companion worth their salt would make other provision. This is worse. This is having your entire meaning stripped from you, without your consent. Everything you own, everything that makes you a woman … A Companion who has this demerit placed against them is shunned, left with nothing but a simple set of clothes. Literally nothing else."

"That's barbaric," Hank said.

"And you're allied to them?" Mal asked, looking Inara in the eye.

"You just don't break the rules!" she said vehemently. "And this is the ultimate deterrent. There would have been warnings, some kind of ways to make recompense, to repent –"

"Repent?" Mal stared. "Repent of what?"

"Mal, you don't understand. You never did." Inara stood up. "Being a Companion is a calling. Much like being a preacher. We have to minister to our clients, just in a physical rather than a spiritual way."

"Whoring ain't anything like being a preacher!"

"Mal." Freya wasn't looking at him, but that one word had him stop. She was trembling slightly.

He looked down at her, sitting next to him, and was ashamed. "Is there any way we can find out who that thing belonged to?" he asked, pointing to the tab still in Zoe's hand.

Inara shook her head. "I don't think so. There's no distinguishing marks."

"What about talking to the Guild?" Kaylee suggested. "It ain't likely this has happened to many Companions, is it?"

Inara raised her eyebrows. "No, it isn't. But I don't think I'd better put in an official request. I'll wave Sheydra, see if she can shed any light on this."

"You do that, 'Nara," Mal said, much gentler than before. "If that little girl down there don't wake up, it may be the only way of finding out who she is."

"I'll do it now." Inara hurried out of the galley.

"I'm still trying to …" Kaylee glanced at Zoe. "You think you could give me a hand?" she asked. "I need an extra pair, and try as I might I ain't persuaded Simon yet to graft me a second."

Zoe nodded, following her out.

"I'm gonna get back onto trying to figure out who came here," Hank said, heading for the bridge. "I've got a coupla fingers in pies that maybe I shouldn't, but I'm hopeful."

As he left the galley, Jayne stirred. He hadn't spoken throughout the argument, but now he stood up. "It ain't right," he said, "what they did to her. No matter what. Kill her, okay, if she'd stolen from 'em, or worse. But not this. And that _fei hua_ about the Companion Guild? Hell, 'Nara's better'n that." He stalked off towards his bunk.

"She was afraid," River said, climbing from the easy chair where she'd been curled.

"Afraid? Why?" Mal asked.

"That you'd react like you did. She knows the gulf between you, and it just got a little wider." She wandered sadly away.

Mal watched her go, then sat down next to his wife. "You okay?" he asked, putting his hand on her thigh. She was still shivering a little.

"It's what I grew up wanting to be," Freya said slowly. "I longed to be a Companion, to wear those wonderful clothes, to go to all the parties, meet people …"

"Not the sex?" He was trying to make her laugh, but it didn't work.

"I was six when I first told my mother," she said pointedly, looking him straight in the eye. "I wasn't that precocious."

"Sorry." He squeezed her leg. "But you didn't know about any of this?"

"Not a thing." She shook her head. "I thought it was glamorous. It never occurred to me there would be rules and regulations." She half-smiled. "I'd never have made it."

"What, not been one of the best?" Mal was affronted for her.

Now she did smile. "I would have been thrown out on my ear after about six months. I wouldn't even have got to the sex part."

"Well, I'm kinda glad you have now." He leaned forward and kissed her softly.

"Me too."

He grinned, then became serious again. "You know, we're assuming that girl is too young to have had a child. But maybe she's older than she looks. I mean, I've no idea how old Inara is. Do you?"

Freya shrugged. "Never asked."

"I have and she won't tell me. Says a gentleman doesn't enquire."

"She has a point."

"Anyway," Mal said, drawing out the syllables. "The point is that the girl might be the mother." He glanced out of the galley. "Inara didn't say what they did with the children, if they were allowed to go with her."

"Simon said she was well-cared for. Manicured. I doubt a woman left with absolutely nothing could afford that."

"No, I agree. But what if the child was placed elsewhere, and she's searching for it?"

Freya looked into his blue eyes, and saw the need in them. "Maybe," she whispered. "Won't know until she wakes up."

"Well, we can find out if she's ever been pregnant right now." He stood up and held out his hand. "Time to have another chat with the doc."

-x-

Inara sat on the sofa, staring at the demerit, wondering why she had lied to them. Kaylee was right – there weren't that many Companions who had been dishonoured in this way, and only one in recent years. And everyone knew – she was an example held up to them all.

If the girl in the infirmary wasn't a thief, hadn't stolen this worthless piece of metal, then she was the daughter of an old friend. Someone Inara hadn't seen in a very long time.


	3. Chapter 3

"_Inara, why aren't you at your study?"_

_She looked up guiltily from the book she was reading. "I'm ... I'm sorry," she stammered. "I didn't realise the time."_

_Medori Donato smiled down at her. "And you couldn't pull yourself away from that?" She pointed at the book._

"_No, I …"_

"_Let me see it."_

_Inara handed it over unwillingly. "It's just something I found."_

"_Hmmn." Medori studied the lurid cover showing two people locked in each other's arms, kissing passionately as they lay, rather improbably, in a hammock strung between two palm trees. "High literature."_

_Inara blushed, something the rest of her teachers at the Training House had been trying unsuccessfully to stop. "I wanted to read something romantic," she explained, dropping her head. "One of the maids got it for me."_

"_You know you could be disciplined for this?" Medori sat down next to the young girl on the green satin sofa._

"_I know." Inara's voice was small._

"_You know why it isn't allowed?"_

_Inara nodded. "It isn't real."_

"_No. It isn't. There has never been a time when a man would come along on his white horse and sweep you off your feet, carrying you into the sunset." Medori put her arm around her shoulders. "And if there were, you can be sure there would be horse shit somewhere along the line."_

_Inara looked up in surprise, and just a little shock, her lips lifting just a little. No-one said words like that here. "It wasn't … I didn't mean …"_

_Medori sighed. "How old are you, Inara?"_

"_Fifteen."_

_So very young. "And when will you be sixteen?"_

"_In three months." Her eyes plunged to her hands again._

"_And you're not looking forward to it?"_

"_I am!" the girl insisted. "But …"_

"_It's passage into something else, isn't it? No matter how painless or easy we make it, losing your virginity can be traumatic."_

"_Was it for you?" Inara asked, the words spilling from her mouth._

_Medori laughed. "It was terrible!" She shook her head. "Not just for me, either. The young man didn't know what to do, and we ended up with me having to tell him where to touch me, even though I'd never been touched like that before."_

"_I know how it works, what to do …" Inara paused. "But it all seems so clinical."_

"_In a way it is. But that's why we train you for so long. Just having sex with a man – or woman – for money, is not being a Companion. That is being a whore." She saw the blush creep back along Inara's cheeks. "What we do is so much more than that. We counsel, console, teach, elucidate … as well as make sure they leave our bed satisfied."_

-x-

"No, Mal," Simon said. "She's never given birth, or even been pregnant." He looked down at the girl on the medbed. "And I'm not surprised. If she is only seventeen or eighteen ..."

"That ain't something you can be too sure on out here," Serenity's captain said. "Too many young girls got kids around their skirts."

"Like Kaylee?"

"Doc, I ain't getting into that argument again with you. She's agreed to marry you, and that makes it okay." He grinned. "'Sides, I don't think Kaylee's gonna see eighteen again."

Simon hid the smile on his own lips. "I wouldn't care to comment."

"So, when's this one likely to wake up?"

"I can't say," the young doctor admitted. "It could be ten minutes, it could be ten days."

"Or never?"

"Maybe. Although there's no head trauma, apart from the damage to her face. Her brain seems to be comparatively healthy, given her dehydrated state when we found her."

"So there's no reason to expect her to die on us?"

"I wouldn't say that," Simon back-pedalled a little. "Injuries like this, there's no guarantee of anything."

"Your best guess, doc."

"Then I'd say she'll live." He stretched.

"Why don't you get some rest?" Freya suggested. "I'll sit with her a while."

"I don't know …"

"Doc, you know when Frey gets an idea in her head, there's no moving it. You'd best take up her offer." Mal smiled.

"I could do with putting my head down for half an hour," Simon admitted. "Just to recharge."

"Then go," Freya said, making shooing motions with her hands. "We'll be fine."

Simon nodded and walked out.

"And no making noise with Kaylee!" Mal called after him.

If the young doctor heard, he didn't dignify it with an answer.

River appeared in the doorway. "I think Inara wants to speak to you," she said, looking at Mal.

"What about, little albatross?"

"She didn't tell me." River stepped into the infirmary and stared down at the figure on the bed. "She's very strong."

Mal nodded, not surprised. "You picking anything up from her?"

River shook her head. "Just pain." She wafted out again.

"Not surprising." Mal glanced at Freya. "You gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine." She drew a stool up and sat down by the girl's head. "Go see Inara."

He stroked her shoulder, and left the infirmary, stopping just outside the door to look back. Freya was smoothing the girl's face, moving her hair away from the bruises. His lips lifted – just like the mother she should have been. He hurried up towards Inara's shuttle.

-x-

"_But it __**is**__ sex for money." Inara felt emboldened enough to ask the question that had been bothering her for a long time. "When does it become love?"_

"_It never does." Medori looked into the young girl's dark eyes. She was a beauty, there was no doubt of that, and she would turn heads when she was older. But there was still so much of the child about her. So much the romantic. "Inara, we can't love. We mustn't. It diverts us from our calling, makes us unable to fulfil our promise to the Guild. But within that promise we can have such diversion, love becomes just an idle dream."_

"_I don't understand."_

"_When you have sex for the first time – and it will be sex, not making love – you will take the next step to becoming a Companion, one of the elite. We will teach you how to make love, to create an illusion so powerful that each of your clients believes you care only for them. But you will learn how to hold back a part of yourself, so that you never truly fall."_

"_Why not? What if I do fall in love? What do I do?"_

_Medori sighed again. "If that happens, you have to take stock. Ask yourself if you truly wish to give up the life you will be leading for one person. If that is enough, if the thought doesn't send you screaming, if you can imagine nothing but being with them for the rest of your life … then renounce being a Companion. We … I know what it means to need so hard that it almost consumes you. It is a curse and a blessing, and choices have to be made."_

"_You chose to leave him?"_

"_I did. I chose the Guild over the man who loved me."_

"_Do you regret it?"_

_Medori stood up, her poise almost sharp in its elegance, her glossy dark hair piled high on her head, jewels in her ears and around her neck. She looked down at the young girl. "Every day, Inara."_

"'Nara?"

"What?" The Companion looked up, surprised to find herself in the shuttle and not back in the Training House.

Mal stepped inside. "You okay?"

She took a moment to run her hands across her face and neck, smoothing away any sign of the unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach. "I'm fine."

"Only you look kinda pale."

"Perhaps I'm a little tired."

"Too much talking about us today?" Mal suggested, smiling a little. "You know, while we were gone."

"Probably." She stood up. "What did you want to see me about?"

"The other way around, I thought. River said you wanted to talk to me."

Inara raised her eyebrows. "I didn't …"

"See, now you're blushing, and that's almost as bad as being pale," Mal said conversationally. "You still ain't got that under control, have you?"

"Believe me, Mal, it is only where you're concerned." There was bite in her tone.

"Not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult."

"Whichever you prefer." She turned away and busied herself with the tea bowl she'd been using earlier. "Did River say why I wanted to speak to you?"

"No," Mal admitted. "But I figured it was 'cause you wanted to tell me the truth."

She turned on him. "So you think I'm lying?"

"I think you know more'n you said." He held his ground, his arms crossed.

"What makes you think that?"

"How long've I known you, 'Nara?" He glanced around the shuttle. "How many years have you rented this from me? Which, by the way, you're behind on."

"My apologies. I'll pay your bailiffs as soon as they arrive," she sniped.

"You know I don't care about that." He paused. "Well, much. But that ain't the point. You're not telling me everything, and I'm beginning to wonder why." He looked down at her, her face blazing. "Do you know who the girl is?"

"No!"

"Then you at least know who that metal thing belonged to." He dropped one arm, reaching out with the other to put his hand on her shoulder. "Ain't that right?"

Inara glared at him, but the touch of his hand on her skin broke her. "Yes," she whispered. "I think I do."

"So tell me."

"Mal, you have to understand, this demerit … it is such a dishonour. There is only one other that comes higher."

"Which is?"

"Purposely killing a client."

"Thought Companions used to do that."

"That's ancient history," she insisted, moving away from him to sit down again. "More than three hundred years ago."

"Still, murder is murder," Mal agreed, joining her. "But having a kid?"

"You don't see." She looked into his blue eyes. "We don't have children. It's Guild law. For a Companion to get pregnant is bad enough, but to choose to continue it, to have the baby …" Her eyes dropped to the hands clenched in her lap.

"No, I don't see." He lifted her chin. "You'd better explain it to me."

"All of our training is designed to make us behave a certain way. To be that perfect woman, to fulfil the client's ultimate wishes." Her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. "Medori broke the first rule – she fell in love."

"Medori?"

"My friend. My teacher. And I believe the mother of the girl in the infirmary."

_Inara stood outside the adjudication room, trembling. She wasn't supposed to be here, not now. At this time of the day she was meant to be in her room, reading the many texts provided on love-making skills, before being tested on them tomorrow. But she couldn't help it. She'd heard the rumours about Medori, about why she had been sequestered in her room for so long. For weeks, now, no-one had seen her, although there were tales of crying heard from her hallway in the middle of the night. And now she had been taken before the Guild Triumvirate._

"_You don't have the right!" Medori said, her clear voice carrying easily through the wicker door._

"_We have the right. You signed a contract with the Guild, and it was perfectly clear. You are carrying a child while still a Companion. That is expressly forbidden."_

"_And if I am?" Inara could almost see the expression on Medori's face. "It's my body."_

"_No, it isn't." There was a pause. "We gave you a second chance, Medori." The female voice wasn't unkind, just firm. "When we took you back into the House, you gave your strict assurance that you would never have any further dealings with this man."_

"_His name's Alexander."_

"_What he is or is not called is irrelevant," said a second voice, this one male, and much harder. "What is relevant is that you went back on your word."_

"_He found me," Medori said, almost in despair. "I didn't look for him."_

"_But you took him into your bed." It was the first woman again. "With no regard for payment. You made him your lover."_

"_I love him." Three words, so simple, said with such profound longing, but that hung in the air like a thundercloud._

"_Then you should have thought further." Another voice, unheard so far. Another woman, sharp. "Your actions were not only against the Guild, but you hid them away. Leaving the House under cover of night to be with him. Behaving like a furtive, stupid child."_

"_We have been lenient, Medori." The first woman. "Gave you options, allowed you to think on your conduct, and you have thrown it back at us. Now we have no alternative."_

"_I won't let you have my child!"_

"_You will." The man, his tone brooking no objection. "Under the contract you signed, which is legally binding and recognised by all the elements of the Alliance, any offspring you produce is the property of the Guild."_

"_No!" There was the sound of struggling._

"_You will be taken back to your room, and you will stay there until you have reached your appointed time. The child will be taken into the care of the Guild, and you will be dismissed." Something clattered to the floor. "Pick it up. It is the symbol of your dishonour."_

"_You can't do this …" Medori's voice was cracked, broken._

"_A Companion has such liberty," the first woman said. "The right to choose her own clients, to charge what she perceives is the correct rate. She can travel, see the most beautiful cities in all the galaxy, meet the highest people, be someone who has influence. We ask little in return."_

"_Your rules strangle us!"_

"_Our rules are in place for a reason. To protect you. All of you." There was a pause. "Take her back to her room."_

_Inara ran to the alcove, pressing herself deeply into it, trying to make herself invisible. _

_The door opened and Medori was escorted out by two of the male house-servants, her head down, her hands clasped protectively in front of the slight mound at her waist._


	4. Chapter 4

Mal stared. "Is this …" He couldn't form the words for a moment. "They took her child?"

"It's Guild law, Mal."

"It's slavery!"

"She signed the contract, as we all did."

"So you thought they were right? You heard all that and you thought they were right?" He couldn't believe it of the woman sitting next to him.

"I was seventeen, Mal. Still training, still being formed to be a Companion." She stood up, needing to move. "Ever since I started the preparation, it was drilled into me to follow their rules. To believe that the Guild Law was right."

"And you still do?"

"Things … changed." She turned from him, staring into the hangings on the wall over her bed.

"What? What changed, Inara?"

She turned to face him, her skirt swirling out. "I came on board this ship!" Her voice was loud, less the Companion and more the woman. "I fell in love, Mal. With you!"

"And that would have … they'd have done this to you?" He was appalled.

"No," she admitted, moderating her tone. "Not at first. But if we'd … if I had taken you into my bed, and they found out, I would have been called before the Guild Triumvirate, invited to explain myself."

"What, leave me or else?"

Inara sighed and fell onto the sofa. "More or less. I would have been recalled to Sihnon, my travelling privileges revoked, put to work in some menial capacity for a while until I had learned my lesson."

"And if you'd said no?"

"Mal …" She looked across at him. "I know you don't understand, and perhaps that's my fault. I've never explained these things to you."

"Then it's time."

"I can't." She shook her head. "Not that I won't, but I can't. So much of it is woven into _being_ a Companion that it is difficult to pull that thread loose."

"You're talkin' in riddles, Inara."

"I can't be any clearer." She looked down. "That's what happened to Medori. Someone found out and reported her to the Guild. They gave her a second chance."

"And she took it. Stayed a Companion."

"It's all she'd known, Mal, and I can understand it. To be left with nothing … you have to be so sure of the love you're going to, and maybe she wasn't."

"Like you weren't sure of mine?" he asked softly.

"No, I wasn't." She sighed. "For whatever reason. Whether it really was Freya between us all that time, or just my career, I wasn't sure of yours."

"You could've asked."

"So could you."

"Seems like we've danced this one before."

She nodded. "It seems we have." She looked away from him now, into the darker recesses of the shuttle. "Only with Medori, he found her again …"

"_Medori?" Inara stood outside her door, still trembling. If she was found here, if anyone saw her breaking the rules, she could be punished._

"_Inara?" The other woman spoke from inside the room. "What are you doing here?"_

"_I heard, Medori. You're pregnant."_

"_How did you …" There was the sound almost like stifled laughter. "You've been listening at keyholes again?"_

"_There wasn't a keyhole," Inara insisted. "But I heard." She glanced up and down the corridor, terrified someone was going to come along. "What are you going to do?"_

"_There's nothing I can do, Inara. The rules are very straightforward. They have the right to my child."_

"_But that's awful!"_

"_Perhaps." There was a sigh. "Of course it's awful, Inara. If it was a slap on the wrist then it wouldn't be a deterrent, would it?"_

"_But has it ever happened before?"_

"_Look in your books. It has, just not very often."_

"_Why did you let it happen to you?"_

"_Oh, Inara. You don't let love happen, you embrace it."_

"_But I thought –"_

"_That I'd turned my back on him? You're right, I did. And I have had to live with that for so long. But he found me, Inara. He found me!" There was joy in her voice, as well as sadness._

"_Why did you let yourself get pregnant, though?" Inara's youth balked at the idea. "It's so easy to –"_

"_I wanted to."_

"_I don't understand."_

"_Inara, if you ever find a man you truly love, who means more to you than being a Companion, than anything in this damn 'verse, you'll see. I wanted to show him how much I loved him, so we created a child together."_

"_But you knew they'd take it."_

"_I wasn't supposed to be here for them to find out." Her voice was so low Inara had to strain to listen. "He was supposed to come for me, that night, and we were going to leave. I don't care if I get shunned – that doesn't matter. But he never came."_

"_Why?"_

_Medori laughed bitterly. "I don't know. I've not been able to find out."_

"_I could –"_

"_No!" The older woman's voice slammed through the wood. "You mustn't. If you got into trouble because of this, I will never forgive myself."_

_Inara huddled against the door. "But I want to help you."_

"_You can't."_

"_Medori …"_

"_Just become a good Companion, Inara. And if you ever find yourself falling in love, fight it. Until it's too late."_

"_Please, let me –"_

"_No. You'd better go. They'll be coming to check on me soon."_

"_Medori –"_

"_Go."_

_Inara stood up, smoothing her dress. "What was his name?" she asked. "Alexander, I heard that much. What was his last name?"_

"_Go, Inara." Her voice trailed off, as if she'd walked away from the door._

"I never saw her again. The news of Medori's confinement spread like wildfire through the Training House, until everyone was talking about it, so they had to make a special announcement. The head of the Triumvirate came, told us all at breakfast one day. She explained that Medori had broken the cardinal rule, and would be dealt with accordingly."

"Dealt with?" Mal still found it hard to take in. "I thought … you know, it appears to me that these so-called civilised planets ain't no more civilised than those on the Rim. At least there it's honest slavers take your kids. Not …"

"Not what, Mal?" Inara asked, feeling guilty anger heat her blood. "And since when did you consider slavery honest work?"

"Since never." He took her hand. "But this is worse."

"I know!"

"But you're still a Companion!"

"Mal …" Her voice had turned to pleading, and Mal took a deep breath. This wasn't getting them anywhere.

"I'm sorry, Inara. I shouldn't be so hard on you. It's just … what they did to her, whoever it was … gorramit, she's just a kid."

Inara nodded, understanding his frustration. "Mal, this is my life. It's what I chose. It's what I wanted with all of my heart. In a way, the rules are there to make prospective Companions think twice. If they can't be bound by them, then … we train for so long, every opportunity is given to change our minds … and some do. But being part of the Guild is such an honour …"

"'Nara, I just can't get my head around this."

"I know. And I wish I could explain it better."

"Do you think it was the Guild did this?"

"No." Inara was positive. "There's no need. They have recourse to other channels, there would be no need to hurt someone like that."

"But if she was causing problems –"

"Mal, we don't even know yet if it is Medori's daughter."

"But she had the baby?"

"I so wanted to help her," Inara admitted. "But I couldn't. She was right, there was nothing I could do. Four months later the leader of the Triumvirate reported that Medori was not to be spoken of again, that her child was now a ward of the Guild, and the matter was at an end."

"Just like that."

"_Just_ like that."

"This ain't the way people should do things, Inara."

"It's Guild law."

"That don't make it right."

"Maybe not," she conceded, standing up and smoothing the unshed tears away from her eyes. "Would you mind leaving me? I have to …"

He stood up. "Course. Get yourself together. I have to see what my engineer's done with my ship anyway." He headed for the door.

"He died," Inara said, not turning around.

"Who?" Mal looked back.

"Alexander. I went onto the Cortex, did some checking after I'd spoken to Medori. I worked out when it would have been, and looked it up. There had been an accident that day. A shuttle crashed. The man who died was called Alexander."

"'Nara …"

"I never told her. I was too afraid to go back. She never knew he didn't abandon her." Her back was so straight it could have been made from steel.

"I –"

"Go."

Mal stared at her a moment longer, then nodded and left the shuttle, intending to just make sure Freya was okay before going to see Kaylee. Just to check.

-x-

Freya was beginning to doze, her head dropping onto her chest, when she heard a sound. She looked up, into the greenest eyes she'd ever seen. They were the colour of new mown grass, and right now they were filled with confusion. The girl tried to sit up, but the casts on her arm and leg meant she jarred the incision in her stomach, and she fell back, those eyes closing in pain.

"Hey, it's all right," Freya said. "You're safe. Just lie still. You are safe."

The girl looked at her again. "Who …" She ran a dry tongue over her swollen lips.

"Freya. My name's Freya." She leaned over and picked up a cup with a straw waiting ready. "Here."

The girl sipped, wincing as the cracks on her cheeks pulled, but watching Freya closely. "Thank you," she whispered, dropping her head back as if it weighed too much.

"You're welcome." Freya smiled.

"Where am I?" Her voice sounded as dusty as the desert outside.

"On board a Firefly. She's called Serenity."

"How did I …"

"We found you." Freya corrected herself. "The captain found you. We brought you back and our doctor fixed you up. You're going to be fine." She leaned forward, stroking the girl's forehead. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Grace."

"Well, hi there, Grace," Mal said from the doorway, smiling. "Good to see you're awake." He stepped inside. "I'm Captain Malcolm Reynolds. This is my ship. And in case she hasn't mentioned it, that's my wife sitting there."

Grace's eyes flickered to Freya, who smiled. "Hadn't quite got around to telling her the whole crew's life stories, Mal."

Mal nodded. "Do you feel strong enough to tell us what happened?" he asked her as the girl's eyes danced back to him, piercing him to the core.

Simon hurried into the infirmary, pushing past the Captain. "Someone should have told me my patient was awake."

"She's only been conscious a couple of minutes," Freya explained softy. "That's your doctor," she said to Grace. "His name's Simon. He can be a bit of a tyrant sometimes, but he's a good medic."

"I'm not a tyrant," Simon interjected, examining the bags still hanging on the stand. "I just like to be kept informed."

Freya smiled.

"So, Grace, what happened?" Mal asked again, moving closer.

Grace tried to wriggle back, crying out as the pain from her injuries flared in her.

"Mal," Freya said warningly, standing so she could put her arm around the girl's shoulders.

Mal stopped. It was obvious this girl was scared of him, and the look she was giving him from those incredible eyes was disconcerting him, too.

Simon, adjusting one of the drips, lifted his head. "Did you hear Bethany crying?" he asked.

Mal glanced at him, tearing his gaze from the girl. "No, nothing."

Freya was talking softly to Grace. "It's all right. No-one's going to hurt you."

"_He_ did," Grace said, pointing at Mal, then clutching at the cast on her left arm.

Simon looked from her to the Captain then back. "You remember that?"

"I can see the memory." Grace's battered face was pale beneath the bruises.

"See it?" Simon repeated.

"Broke my bones," the girl moaned. "Crack."

"Grace," Freya said gently, making her look round. "We had to. They were setting wrong. If we hadn't, they would have healed crooked."

"Still hurt me."

Freya looked at Mal, and he saw blood at her lip, and on her shoulder, more pouring from a gash across her swollen, distended belly. He shook his head, blinking hard. As he reopened them, Freya was staring at him, no blood, her stomach as flat as ever.

"Mal?" she asked.

"What the _diyu_ was that?" he muttered.

Mal was further jolted by Inara behind him, saying, "You're awake." He turned to look at her, all elegant and poised, smiling softly at the girl.

Who sat up as much as she could, despite the pain, and shouted, "Where is she?"

Simon grabbed a hypo, about to sedate her, but suddenly his face went white. He backed away from the medbed. "I have to – I can hear Bethany crying." His gaze went from one to the other of them. "Can't you hear her?" He ran from the infirmary.

"Where's my mother?" Grace shouted again, a thin trickle of blood running down her chin from a split in her lip.

"I don't know," Inara said, taking a step backwards, into the arms of someone who held her, their fingers digging into her flesh. The man in front of her slashed the blade down her cheek, and she felt the skin part, blood running down her neck. She tried to scream, but no sound came from her throat as she collapsed to the deck.

Freya looked down at Grace, reaching out to her. "What are you doing?" she asked, standing on a green hillside overlooking a small stream, the sunlight softened by trees overhead. She looked down. There was a small grave, a simple marker at the head. Next to it was a dark, gaping hole, six feet deep and as long, ready to be filled.

"Mal?"

Upstairs in his bunk, Jayne could hear the unmistakeable sound of Reavers. He _knew_ this place was a trap – they'd broken in and were killing, raping, eating – well, they weren't gonna take him. There was screaming, tearing though his brain, but he couldn't tell who it was. With sweating, shaking hands he loaded Vera.

Mal watched as Niska slid the blade between Freya's ribs, her face contorting with the effort not to scream. He struggled with his bonds, but couldn't get to her, couldn't stop the violations.

"Such entertainment," the old man said. "And I do not even touch you." He smiled.

"Leave her alone!" Mal screamed. "God, please, leave her alone! She's pregnant!"

"Yes." Niska nodded and laid his hand in an obscene benediction on Freya's naked, swollen stomach. "Is double the pain for you, yes?" He reached for the small black box his torturer was holding out.

Hank could see Zoe below him, leaning on the tree, talking to Mal. The sun was setting, shining into the bridge of Serenity, turning everything gold, but he could still see out. Zoe was laughing, something she didn't do very often, bending over with humour at whatever it was Mal had said. The Captain was grinning, and they seemed so very easy in each other's company.

The pilot watched as Mal put his hand on Zoe's arm, stroking her. Hank shook his head. Not chatting now. Standing very close. He moved up to the window, leaning on it to see more clearly. Mal was touching her face. Touching her beautiful face. Pulling her around so he could kiss her. The Captain was taking advantage. But she wasn't resisting. In fact, he could see her hands moving up and down Mal's back.

Zoe turned to Hank, hearing him moan, seeing his eyes fix on the ship outside as the harpoon crashed through the window, impaling him to the chair. He called out to her, asking her to help him, blood pouring from his mouth, but she couldn't move.

Simon was searching the ship, hunting for Bethany and Kaylee. He could still hear the little girl crying, and it was tearing at him, hurting him more than all the wounds he had ever received. There was no-one. Serenity was empty, flying through the black on her own, no other person but himself on board. And he could still hear Bethany.

Kaylee heard him behind her, his dark brown voice removing all the strength from her muscles.

"You made a ruckus. And you know what that means. What I promised. I'll take no pleasure from it, but I know a lot of ways of making your last hours like you wish you'd never been born."

She couldn't stop him. She wanted to fight, to stop him from doing what he was doing, to stop him from taking away something she held most precious, but she couldn't even say no.

River staggered through the cargo bay, fighting all the images crowding in on her, trying to take her over, all the hallucinations the crew were experiencing, and others. But she had lived with things that were not her own for so long, could ignore them a little as she pulled herself into the common area, seeing Inara on the floor, holding her face, Mal in the doorway to the infirmary, pressed back against the wall, tears on his cheeks, Freya …

She was reaching out, slowly, as if moving through fast flowing water, but she took hold of the young girl's face, turning it towards her. "Grace," she said, her voice tense, holding together by a mere whisper as her mind told her they were burying Mal. "Stop this."

Grace's green eyes gleamed maniacally, then she sobbed, breaking down into Freya's arms.

Up in his bunk Jayne lowered Vera from beneath his chin, feeling the ache in his trigger finger. Zoe and Hank looked at each other, their eyes wide. Simon picked up Bethany from her crib, while Kaylee wiped the tears from her face on the back of her sleeve and picked up a wrench, slipping it into the long pocket on the leg of her coveralls.

"What was that?" Mal asked, staring at the young girl, Freya holding her, whole and safe, not bleeding, dying.

"She's psychic," Freya said, so glad to hear his voice.

"Really."

"I didn't mean …" Grace looked up. "I'm sorry!"

"She doesn't have the control, Mal," Freya went on, comforting the girl and smoothing her hair. "She's never been shown how."

"It was freed by stress," River said as Inara got to her feet, feeling the soft, smooth, unblemished skin of her cheek.

"Stress?" Mal asked, still shaking from the hallucination, from seeing Freya die in front of him.

"From finding out about her mother."

"She knows where she is," Grace said, staring at the Companion over Freya's arm.

"No, I don't," Inara insisted.

"She knows!" Her face screwed up again and Freya felt her grip on reality slip, the gaping maw of the grave with the others about to slide Mal into it …

"Grace, look at me," she commanded, concentrating. "Look into my mind. See my control. Use it."

Those deep green eyes were like a sledgehammer breaking through her barriers, laying everything bare, but slowly the mental touch eased, became less agonising, until it was a caress, and Grace relaxed. "I can see it," she whispered.

"Mal, you'd better go for a few minutes," Freya said, instant sweat making her shirt stick to her back.

"You gonna be okay?" he asked, not happy at all.

"Shiny." She didn't look away from the girl, but the slight smile on her taut lips was for him alone.

"Okay. I'll just be outside."

"Don't go far."

He stepped out into the common area, closing the doors carefully behind him.

"What the hell happened, captain?" Zoe asked, jumping down the steps from the cargo bay, Hank and Jayne at her heels.

"I heard Reavers," the big mercenary said, not able to repress a shudder. "I was gonna …" He stopped, swallowing back the fear.

Mal looked at his crew, but no-one was going to make fun of Jayne this time. From the looks on their faces, it had happened to them all.

"It looks like our new guest is …" Mal looked at River, standing with her arms wrapped around herself. "What, little albatross? She ain't just a reader."

River shook her head, staring at the door. "No. Not just that."

"So what is she?"

She looked at him, her dark eyes holding indescribable emotions.

"Home."


	5. Chapter 5

"Home?" Jayne repeated, his face screwed up in disbelief. "What in the _go tsao de_ 'verse are you talkin' about?"

Kaylee ran down the stairs from the engine room, joining them as Simon carried Bethany, still asleep, from the area of their quarters. She ran to him and threw her arms about them both, trembling. He looked at her. "Kaylee?"

"I saw him," she said, feeling the comfort of the wrench in her pocket. "He …"

"Who?"

Kaylee looked at the others, then shook her head. "No. It doesn't matter." But the trembling didn't stop.

"It wasn't real," Inara said shakily, her hand still to her face.

"Figured that much," Jayne shot back. "But what does the doc's sis mean by home?"

"She's safe, like me," River explained.

"Honey, whoever she is, this isn't her home," Zoe said, still feeling the pain of watching Hank impaled and unable to do a thing about it.

Simon handed Bethany to her mother. "_Bao-bei_, I have to –"

Mal grabbed his arm. "No, you don't. Freya's talking to her."

River stood between her brother and the door. "She's showing her how to control it. How she controls the darkness inside."

"Freya ain't like that!" Mal said sharply, aware he was behaving somewhat irrationally.

"No?" River asked, her pale face almost luminous in the low lighting.

He couldn't respond. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't understand what went on in Freya's mind, not in the depths, the corners. All he knew was that he loved her, and he'd do anything he could to keep her safe. "That's what she did, wasn't it? Grace."

River nodded.

"Sir?" Zoe asked.

"Our greatest fears." He couldn't clear it from his mind, seeing her hanging in those chains …

"What we are most afraid to lose," River corrected gently. "She amplified them, until they became real."

"And if Freya hadn't broken it?"

Jayne's head reared up. He knew what he'd have done. His brains would be spread over his guns, right now.

"I don't know. People have died because they thought they should." River shrugged. "It's her gift."

"That's not a gift, it's a curse," Simon said, taking Kaylee tightly back into his arms.

"Can Freya help her that much?" Mal asked.

"I don't know." River moved to the door, looking in through the small window at the two occupants. "A little. But it took her years to gain the control she has now. How can she pass that along in a few minutes?"

-x-

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. I understand, Grace. It's easy to strike out, but you have to control it."

"How do you? All those things I can see …" The girl was trembling fiercely.

Freya was crying, so afraid of all the darkness being laid bare to the light of this girl's mind, yet still she kept her defences down, determined to help her. "I would never ask anyone to go through what I did," she admitted. "But you can use my control."

"I'm scared."

"So am I." Freya smiled through her tears. "But I won't let anything happen to you."

"Why do you want to help me?"

"Because it's the right thing to do."

"Why?"

"Grace, concentrate. See what my mentor taught me, how to practise self-control …"

-x-

"Did she do that to the other ship?" Jayne asked.

Mal was surprised. "I … maybe."

"If'n she did, made them see the things they were most afraid of …" He shuddered again.

"Do you think she came from the Academy?" Hank asked quickly, not wanting to think of Zoe and Mal in the throes of passion, but realising the others had seen much worse. "If she's got that much ability, wouldn't the Alliance –"

"Not the Academy," River said, still staring in the window to the infirmary. "Her abilities were dormant, hidden until recently."

"Then where?" Mal asked.

"I can't tell," she admitted, sounding puzzled. "Every time I try and get close she shuts me out."

"Thought people couldn't do that," Jayne put in.

"Not usually. But she's stronger than I am."

"You sound surprised," Zoe said.

"I am. I've never met anyone as powerful as this."

"We need to know what's going on," Mal said, heading for the door.

River shot her arm across, blocking his path. "Let them be, just a while longer."

"Is Freya okay?"

The young psychic looked at him. "It's painful."

"Then –"

"But she has to do it."

-x-

It was like molten lava running through her brain. The caress was gone, replaced by searing pain that threatened to overwhelm her. But still she stayed, holding Grace in her mind, wanting so hard to fight back, to lash out, to hurt, but she controlled it, using that control to show the girl how to do it. Images from her past flashed through her, her childhood, playing with her brother, her mother looking at her with that expression she came to know so well, the Companion, the Academy … She sobbed at that, seeing again what they did to her, to the others, the agony and the blood, the fire … Then running, being found, helped, healed. Faster now, the images almost blurring together. The war, the bar, Mal, Dhu Khang, the medship, the camp, Mal, Serenity, her own vessel, Mal, Alice, Mal, Mal, Mal …

Then it was gone. She was alone in her mind again and she took a ragged breath.

"You love him so much," Grace whispered.

"So much."

"I can see why."

"Can you?" Freya managed a shaky laugh. "Sometimes I'm not so sure."

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"Hurting you."

Freya stroked the wet hair from Grace's face, looking into those green eyes. "Now you know how not to. You just have to practice."

"How long for?"

"Forever."

The door slid open and Mal looked inside. "River said … are you okay?" He was shocked to see how pale Freya was.

"Shiny," his wife said, smiling at him.

"Can we come in?"

She nodded. "For a while. Although I think Grace needs to rest."

"I need to know what happened." Mal stepped inside, Simon following. The others crowded around the doorway. "Do you feel strong enough to talk?"

Grace glanced at Freya, then nodded. "I'm sorry," she said.

"I know. Just don't do it no more," he said, smiling a little at her, trying to put her at her ease. "It ain't exactly how I planned to spend this evening."

"Ghost stories," Grace said, her own mouth lifting.

"That it was." Mal pulled the stool from under the counter and perched on it. "So, what's your story?"

"My name's Grace." She grinned, then winced as the cut on her lip reopened and a small trickle of blood seeped down her chin. Immediately Simon was there with a steristick, touching it gently. "I told you that, didn't I?"

"That you did. But it's a nice name."

"Grace Shandu." She looked up at Simon. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he smiled.

She turned back to Mal. "I was at the Training House on Isis."

"You were going to be a Companion?" Mal was surprised.

"I was brought up there," Grace said. "Ever since my mother … ever since I was abandoned."

Mal heard Inara gasp, but he didn't look round. "Is that what happened?"

"I thought so. That's what I was always told. That my mother left me on the steps of the House and they took me in, fed me, clothed me, educated me …" She gave a humourless laugh. "At least until two weeks ago."

"What happened?"

"_We shouldn't be in this part of the library," Grace said, looking out of the end of the stacks, making sure no-one was coming. "If we get caught –"_

"_Don't be such a scaredy-cat," Veronica said, climbing the steps gracefully. "No-one ever comes here. This is just old stuff nobody wants to read anymore."_

"_Then why did you want to come here?" Grace looked up at her friend, balancing carefully on the very top of the ladder._

"_Don't you want to win?"_

"_I don't care about that."_

"_No, you just want to be a Companion." There was something in her voice other than friendship, something harsh._

"_Of course I do," Grace said. "Otherwise why are we here?"_

_Veronica looked down into the other girl's green eyes. "Oh, I know we do. And in a couple of years that's what we'll be, taking clients, earning privileges …" She smiled. "But until then we have to have fun, and the bet was to get a book from here."_

"_Well, you've got one." Grace glanced behind her again. "Can we go now?"_

"_It has to be from the very top shelf." Veronica was reaching up. "Right up …" She lifted one foot to get more height, but somehow she slipped. She grabbed onto the shelf and managed to stop herself falling by a miracle, but dislodged a book that fell with a resounding thud to the floor._

"_Are you all right?" Grace asked, holding the ladder steady so her friend could regain her footing._

"_Shiny," Veronica said, climbing quickly down. "Pick that up and put it under your dress."_

"_Why me?"_

"_Because I said so. You've got more room under there than me." She smoothed her own dress down._

_For a moment Grace was tempted to say exactly what she thought, but stopped. Instead she picked up the book and slipped it under her skirt, holding it in place with her sash. She felt pregnant, a great lump in front of her, but it didn't show too much. She lifted her head. "Veronica –"_

"_Ssh. Someone's coming!" They both listened, and indeed there were footsteps at the end of the library. "Quickly!" Veronica said, pulling at Grace's arm. They hurried out of the other door._

_Back in the dormitory corridor Veronica pulled Grace into her room. "Show me!" she demanded, and Grace let the book fall to the floor. The other girl snatched it up, turning the pages avidly. "It's just a dusty ledger," Veronica said, totally disgusted. "It isn't even anything interesting. We'll have to go back, get another one."_

"_No," Grace said firmly. "I'm not. If you want to then you can, but … it's not safe."_

"_But the bet …"_

"_Then we lose. But I'm not going to risk everything just for a stupid wager."_

"_Grace –"_

"_I said no."_

"_Fine." Veronica thrust the book into Grace's hands. "Then you can take this back."_

"_I said I'm not –"_

_Veronica pushed her out into the corridor. "I don't care." She slammed the door closed._

_Grace stared at the wood for a moment, then hurried to her own room, the book held close. Once inside she sat on her bed and looked at it. Veronica was right, it was just a ledger, some kind of reference volume. It seemed to be a list of demerits against Companions, and the penalties applied. She turned the pages idly, wondering why anyone would want to break the rules like this, then her heart seemed to stop. That was her name. Grace Shandu. But it couldn't be. It had to be a mistake. She wasn't in here._

_She got up and made sure the door was locked, then returned to the book. With shaking hands she turned the page over to read the beginning of the text._

'_Medori Donato,' it said in elegant copperplate. 'First infringement – 6799. Taking a lover without permission. Demerit – fifth level. Penalty – two years all privileges rescinded.'_

_That didn't make sense. She didn't know anyone by that name, had never even heard it. She read on, noting a few minor misdemeanours, but nothing major. Mostly around being unable to hold her tongue when speaking to a House Priestess. Usually the same one. Grace smiled a little – it certainly sounded like a clash of personalities here. She turned the page over. And stopped smiling._

'_Medori Donato.' This time the hand was less elegant, more angry, the pen having left deep indentations in the paper as if the writer were incensed. "Seventh infringement – 9503. Having a child without permission. Demerit – first level. Penalty – permanent shunning and removal of the child.'_

_Permanent shunning? That was … Now her heart was beating so hard in her chest she was sure it was going to burst. She read on, blinking back tears._

_The notation continued. 'The child, a girl, was removed from Donato at birth and placed in the care of the Guild. She will be brought up under the care of the Guild and, if found suitable, be initiated into the order of Companions. Her name shall be Grace Shandu, as is the tradition.'_

_A heavy black line was scored through the rest of the page, and it seemed to sear its way through Grace's heart. This was her. The date on the page was confirmation – her birthday. Her mother had … permanent shunning … how could she do that? How could she … This was her heritage? How could she do …?_

_She was panting, trying to understand, trying to see the how this could have happened, how her world could have been turned upside down. She stared at the words, written with such anger, trying to see past them, trying ..._

_Pain, pain behind her eyes, all through her head. She screamed, thrashing on the bed, pushing the book to the floor__, tearing at her hair to try and stop the agony burning through her skull …_

"I don't remember anything else," Grace said, trembling, trying to hold together in the way she'd been taught so recently. "I woke up in the House Infirmary, where they said I'd had some form of fit."

"It was your powers coming through," River said softly, stepping into the room behind Mal.

Grace stared at her, then nodded. "I didn't feel any different. Light headed, perhaps, but nothing …" She looked back at Mal. "They didn't say anything about the book, so neither did I. They must have assumed I'd … I don't know."

"How did you find out?" Freya asked.

"Veronica came to see me."

"_Did you tell anyone?" she hissed, glancing up at the nurse at the end of the infirmary._

"_Of course not." Grace lay back, her head still aching a little._

"_Good. Don't." Veronica sat back. "So what was in it?"_

"_What?"_

"_The book."_

"_Nothing."_

"_Then why've you just gone white as a sheet?"_

"_There was nothing!"_

_Veronica glared at her. "I thought we were supposed to be best friends."_

"_It was just a list." Grace tried to smile. "That's all. Really boring, like you said."_

"_Then tell me."_

"_I … don't remember."_

"_Then I think I might go and take a look myself," she said shrewdly._

"_No!" Grace reached out with the speed of a snake and grabbed the other girl's wrist._

"_Let go of me!" Veronica said loudly, trying to pull free._

_The infirmary nurse hurried towards them._

"_Please … " Grace begged, the pounding beginning again in her head. "Don't …"_

"_Let me go!" Veronica shouted, then screamed, her face ashen. "No, please, don't hurt me!" she pleaded, wrenching her hand free to cover her face, scratches from Grace's nails beginning to bleed._

_The nurse stopped, staring, her body rigid with fear._

"I didn't know what I'd done, how I'd done it, only that they were afraid of me." Grace was crying, and Freya took the proffered swab from Simon to wipe at her tears. "There were a lot of people around, all talking at once, and I couldn't concentrate …" She sniffed. "They were saying things that I didn't understand, but I knew they were afraid of me."

"Of what you could do," River added quietly.

"Then some men came, spoke to me, did tests …" She shook her head. "No-one told me who they were, but I knew they were Alliance. I could … tell. They wanted to take me there and then, but the House Priestess wouldn't let them. She said I was still too ill to travel, so arrangements were made for a transport to pick me up." She glanced at Mal. "They said they were taking me to a school. Somewhere I could learn how to … control …" She stopped, looking into Freya's dark eyes. "It was a place like that, wasn't it?"

Freya nodded slowly. "Probably."

"What I saw in your mind, what they did to you …" Grace's eyes were wide. "Would they have done that to me?"

"No. They've refined their techniques since then." Freya tried to hide the bitterness in her voice. "But the outcome is still pretty much the same."

"You won't let them?" She gripped the older woman's hand tightly.

"No. No, Grace. You're safe here."

"Grace," Mal said softly. "You'd better go on."

She nodded, swallowing. "One of the crew, a man, seemed to think because I'd come from the training house I was his for the taking. He tried to …" Her eyes closed for a moment, and she breathed deeply.

"Good," Freya murmured. "Good girl."

"I fought him off, but he was too strong," Grace went on, not looking at anyone, just feeling Freya's hand in hers. "I couldn't stop him …" She gulped air down. "I let go."

"You mean he –" Mal glanced at Simon, who shook his head.

"I mean my mind." She glared at him, so like River's 'boob' look he almost smiled. "I let him see his fears."

"Grace, honey, you shouldn't sound so proud of it," Freya said gently.

"He hurt me!"

"And you defended yourself. That was good. But never be proud of hurting someone back."

Grace nodded. "Okay." She licked her lips. "But what he was afraid of, he fought against, and he hit me. I couldn't stop him, not after …" She raised her hand to her cheek. "Even when I stopped projecting, he kept on hitting me, kept on …" She began to tremble violently.

"Simon," Freya said, and the young doctor injected the sedative he had ready.

"I don't remember everything after that, just men around me, then grit under my face, heat on my skin …" Her eyes started to close. "Until I came here."

"You don't need to remember that," Freya said softly, stroking her forehead. "Just relax. I'm here. I won't let anything bad happen to you."

"Thank you," Grace said as she slid into sleep.

Mal looked at Freya, but she just smiled, not letting go of the girl's hand. He nodded and turned on his heel, leaving the infirmary to face his crew.

"Kaylee, how close're we to being spaceworthy again?"

The young mechanic stood up straight. "Coupla hours. Maybe less. I got everything done, just need to put her back together. Took less than I thought so –"

"Shiny," Mal said, interrupting her but taking the sting out with a smile. "You finish off and let me know soon as we can leave atmo."

"Will do, Cap'n," she said, scampering up the stairs towards her engine room.

"They must have been scared, dumped her on the closest moon," Hank said, leaning on the handrail.

"_Huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo_," Inara said, venom in her voice.

"I don't think anyone disagrees with you," Mal said, turning to her. "So this _is_ Medori's daughter?"

Inara thought for a moment. "I think it is. There's a strength to her chin …"

"Then we need to get gone."

"You think they'll come back for her?" Hank asked, surprised.

"I doubt it, but when they don't turn up at the Alliance facility someone's gonna start asking questions, and eventually they'll find out where that _chiang-bao hoe-tze duh_ of a crew left her. Don't intend to be around when they come looking." He looked at his pilot. "Hank, get onto the Cortex. See what you can find out about her."

Hank nodded. "Interesting name. Probably not many around with a name like that."

Inara looked at him. "Medori Donato. But she may not be known as that," she added, turning back to Mal. "This … what happened … was a total shunning. A full dishonour. She might not have wanted anyone to find out."

"Have to start somewhere," Mal said, looking back into the infirmary at Freya and Grace, Simon hovering in the background. Hank nodded and hurried up towards the bridge.

"She's getting attached," Zoe said quietly next to her captain.

"I know."

"Is that a good thing, sir?"

Mal glanced at her. "I don't know." His eyes held a sort of hopelessness. "After Alice, I thought maybe not, but …"

"It's what they both need," River said unexpectedly. "They can help each other."


	6. Chapter 6

"I can't!" Grace was awake, and very upset. "Please! Take it away from me. Please."

Nightmares had plagued her sleep, her mind flittering uncontrolled through the crew, picking up on their thoughts, on all the hidden things they never wanted anyone to see, and she didn't want to, but couldn't stop.

"Grace, I can't." Simon shook his head.

"Please!"

"I took an oath. This, what you have, is natural. I can't damage –" His vision blurred and he could hear –

"Grace."

The girl looked at Freya, and Simon refocused. "I can't control this," she said, her eyes tearing again. "I don't know how. I don't want to see … to feel … Zoe and Wash, her pain is still so alive. You and Alice … I can't take how it makes you cry in the night, Mal holding you so tightly because he feels the same. And River … what they did to her … to you … Even with –" She looked back at Simon. "Please."

"I can't," Simon reaffirmed. "Besides, now we know they're not real, surely we can stop them from taking us over."

"You don't know anything!" Grace shouted. "I could make you kill each other and not be able to stop myself!" She covered her face with her hands. "Take it away! I don't want to see it!"

Freya held her close, rocking her gently. "It's all right."

"It isn't!" the girl wailed. "You can't stay awake forever! And I saw what that drug did. If you gave me that –"

"No!" Freya took a deep breath. "If you saw that then you saw what it did to me. I can't let Simon do that to you, not even if you want it."

"Freya, please!"

Mal, not wanting to be too far from his wife, looked at them. "Can you sedate her again at least?" he asked quietly. "Or would that be against your rules?"

Simon flashed him a look of fierce anger, but nodded slowly. He looked back at the girl. "It won't help, though. She needs control, and she can't learn that if she's asleep."

"It won't be enough," the girl sobbed.

Freya lifted Grace's chin to look into those eyes. "It would take the edge off, perhaps. Make it easier to control the anger."

"Yes." Grace nodded. "It is anger. I can feel it inside me, and all it wants to do is burst out."

"Control it."

"I'm trying."

"Remember what you saw. How to visualise it." She didn't break eye contact, opening up her mind again. "Focus, Grace."

"Simon." Mal nodded at the young doctor, jerking his head over his shoulder. Simon followed him outside. "Can you stop this?"

The young doctor glanced back into the infirmary. "She's right – Naxom would break all the connections, like it did with Freya. But I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because whatever she feels, however much she hates this, it's natural." Simon's face was dogged, resolute.

"Even if she never wanted it in the first place."

"Even then."

"But she's right, doc. Freya can't stay awake forever, and this ain't doing her any good." He watched his wife talking quietly to the girl. "Look at her, Simon. This is taking too much out of her."

"You want to be the one to tell her to stop?"

"Not if I value any portion of my anatomy, no." Mal sighed. "Isn't there something temporary? Something you can give Grace just to shut her down for a while? Let us all get some sleep?"

Simon thought for a moment. "There is a drug called Heretofen. It's used on schizophrenic patients to …" He paused. "I'm not happy about this, Mal."

"I know. This Herto –"

"Heretofen."

"How long do the effects last?"

"On the people it's meant for, the dosage is 10cc every eight hours. But this would be experimentation."

"Can you try it?"

"Are you making it an order?"

"Do I have to?"

They glared at each other for a long moment, then Simon nodded. "I've got some on hand."

"River?"

"I tried it, but she broke it down eventually. Grace probably will too."

"Even if it only lasts a while, it'd give her a break." Mal looked into the infirmary again. "Both of them."

-x-

"Mal, I think I've got something," Hank said as Serenity's captain stepped onto the bridge.

"Show me."

Hank punched the Cortex back on the screen. "Medori Sati." A picture of a beautiful raven-haired woman filled the viewer, her green eyes smiling.

"Sati?"

Hank shrugged. "I can't find another Medori of the right age."

"That's her," Inara said from behind them, and both men turned to look at her.

"You sure?"

"She hasn't changed much in eighteen years, Mal."

"What was the context of the information?" he asked his pilot.

"Um, report of a society function. Just gives a list of names and the venue."

"Where?"

"Athens."

"How long ago –"

"Hank? Serenity's back on-line." Kaylee's voice sounded exhausted over the com. "You can tell the Cap'n –"

Mal thumbed the switch. "I heard. Good work, _xiao mei-mei_. She gonna hold together?"

"Captain," she said pointedly and clicked off.

Mal grinned, imaging the look on her face. "Okay, Hank. How long?"

"We're lucky," Hank said. "Athens is at its closest point to us right now. Less than a day."

"Good. Get it laid in and take us off this moon."

"We're gone, Mal." He started to input the code.

Mal turned to Inara. "You should get some rest."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. You seen yourself lately?"

"Thank you for that wonderful compliment," she said witheringly, turning and walking out of the cockpit.

"Just thought you might not know," he replied, following her into the galley. "Can't be easy."

"What can't?" She pulled open a drawer and removed one of her scented teabags.

"Finding out your precious Guild ain't so high and mighty after all."

"Are you trying to pick a fight?" she asked, turning on him, colour flaring in her cheeks. "Because if that's what you'd like, I'm more than willing to oblige."

"Just stating the facts," he said, sitting down in his chair and propping his feet on Freya's, feeling Serenity lifting off.

"Mal …" She couldn't speak. He could make her feel exasperated with barely a word, he'd got it down to such a fine art, and she squeezed the teabag so hard it burst in her fingers. "Oh, in the name of _suo-yo duh doh shr-dang_." She dropped the fragments into the bin and brushed the leaves from her hands.

"I think we're a bad influence on you," Mal said conversationally. "Your language is beginning to leave a lot to be desired." He glanced across at her. "They give you demerits for that too?"

"It's the rules, Mal!" she said loudly, her voice carrying to the bridge where Hank decided to make like he wasn't there. "You don't break the rules!"

"And if the rules are wrong?" He swung his feet back to the floor and stood up. "What then? Who gets to change them if people don't say they're wrong?"

"And go to war?"

"If needs be!"

They were staring at each other from only a few inches apart, and Inara wanted to take hold of him, shake some sense into him. Or kiss him, she wasn't quite sure which.

"Sir, there are people trying to get some sleep, here," Zoe said from the doorway. "So if you're going to fight, do you think you could go and do it someplace else?"

"We disturbing you?"

"Yes sir." She stared at him.

"Then … we'll try to keep it down."

"Thank you, sir." She gave them both one more look then headed back for her bunk.

"How can she sleep after that?" Inara asked, leaving the closeness of his blue eyes and heading back behind the counter.

"After what?"

"Those hallucinations."

"We don't know what she saw," Mal pointed out.

"Our greatest fears …"

Mal sighed. "'Nara, six years we lived with our greatest fears, every day. And since then we've had people taken away from us too. I think Zoe knows how to get some rest after that. Even if she ain't actually sleeping."

"Mmn." Inara took a second bag from the drawer and dropped it in her cup.

"Why are you still supporting them?" Mal asked finally. "The Guild. On their side. They've done nothing but harm you and yours."

"It isn't like that."

"Then tell me what it is like, then."

"I tried before."

"Then try again. I'll attempt not to be so dense this time."

She looked over at him. "Everyone has to live by rules. Even you. Yours might be slightly different to other people's, but they're still rules."

"That still doesn't make what they did right."

"It isn't. Oh, Mal, I agree with you. But things change slowly. The Triumvirate are aging, there might be new blood soon. Things will change."

"That doesn't exactly help that little girl in the infirmary."

"I'm sorry, Mal, but I can't explain it any better." She sighed. "Everything has to change … or die."

"What happened, Inara?" He gazed at her. "Something you're not telling me."

"Things happen, Mal."

"Yeah, like you falling in love with me."

It still hurt that he didn't say it the other way around. "Other things."

"Like what?"

She shook her head. "No. They're not something I intend to discuss with you."

"To do with me?"

"No."

"Why don't I believe you?"

"Believe what you want. You always do."

"You think I'm that shallow?"

"Mal, don't ask me. It will only cause a fight, and Zoe will come and tell us off again."

"That she would."

Inara poured hot water onto the tea bag, then asked, almost in passing, "What did you see?"

"Frey. Dying." His words conveyed none of the powerlessness he had felt, the overwhelming pain. "You?"

"Something like that." She didn't elaborate, feeling too ashamed that her own greatest fear seemed to be the loss of her beauty, not realising it was the loss of control that came with it that was worse.

Mal looked at her, sure there was more to it, but wasn't going to ask. "Well, I'm gonna check on Frey, then I'm turning in for a while. Best you get some sleep too."

Inara nodded and watched him leave the galley with guilty eyes.

-x-

"You mustn't argue," River said in his ear as he walked down the stairs.

He tried, successfully, not to jump. "Albatross, what did I tell you about creeping up on people?"

"That it was girly and impulsive?"

"Nope, pretty sure that wasn't it."

"That I can do it to everyone else but not the captain?"

Mal turned and looked into her face. "That's it. So how come you ain't?"

"You mustn't argue with Inara. She can't help being afraid to leave the Guild."

"Leave?" Mal shook his head. "She won't do that."

"She's considering it. Has been considering it for a long while now, ever since Tetris. Perhaps before."

He looked above her, almost as if he could see through the steel of Serenity into the heart of her shuttle. "Will she?"

"She doesn't know what else she could be."

"She's my crew."

River smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. "She can't see that. You have to tell her. To be there when she decides, whatever that decision finally is."

"River …"

The girl was past him in a flash and running down the stairs to her room. "Just be there."

"River, wait." He used his captain's voice, and she stopped at the bottom.

"Yes sir?" she asked, looking back up at him.

"Why ain't you been to talk to Grace? You might be able to help her."

"I would, but it isn't me she needs right now. It's a mother."

"Well, we're trying to find –"

"No, not her." River suddenly grinned. "Freya." And she was off, her dark hair flying behind her.

He shook his head. Sometimes that girl … He carried on down into the common area, then stopped. There was Freya, sitting on the sofa, her arm around Grace who lay with her head in his wife's lap. They looked so natural, so at peace that he smiled. He picked up one of the throws and gently laid it over the young girl, then another over Freya.

"Hi," she said, lifting her head.

"I thought you were asleep," he accused.

"No. Just sitting." She smiled at him.

"Is _she_ asleep?"

"Mmn. Simon dosed her up and at least her dreams seem peaceful now."

"How come she isn't in the infirmary?" he asked, going down onto his heels to look her in the eyes.

"She wanted to be somewhere else, and Simon said it was okay." Freya looked down and stroked the girl's dark hair.

"You know she's not yours."

She lifted her face to his. "I know. But she needs our help."

"And we'll give it." He put his hand on her knee. "But she isn't Alice."

"I know that." She shook her head at him. "I really do. But all I keep thinking is that if … if Alice were in this position, I'd want people to help her. To be there for her."

"We are." He lifted himself up to sit next to her.

"You should go to bed," she said, glad to feel his warmth next to her, nevertheless. "The captain needs his beauty sleep."

He grinned. "Ain't I pretty enough?" he asked, then nudged her. "'Sides, you know I can't sleep without you next to me." He lifted the blanket so it was over both their knees. "Was it difficult? Letting Grace in, I mean?"

She nodded, her face taking on an aspect of sorrow that he hated with a will and wanted to kiss away. "All those things I'd pushed out of my mind. All laid bare. So many things I've seen, done, had done to me …"

"Are you okay now?"

She looked at him. "Yes. It's odd, but … yes. I feel light. Almost …" She stopped.

"Almost what?"

"Healed." She smiled at him, and his heart lifted. "Like I do when we make love."

"You feel orgasmic?"

She laughed and elbowed him in the ribs. "You know what I mean."

"I think I do." He put his arm around her, pulling her closer. "Maybe River was right."

"What about?"

"That this could help both of you."

"Maybe." Freya snuggled carefully into his shoulder, not wanting to disturb the sleeping girl. "I only know I want to try and make things better for her." Her eyelids fluttered to her cheeks.

"We will, _ai ren_. We will." He closed his eyes, just to rest them for a while.


	7. Chapter 7

Athens, a mixture of farmland and industry, was said to look the most like Earth-that-was, away from the Core, but right now it just looked dirty, with smog sitting above the cities. Not that they were in the city.

"Are you sure about this?" Mal asked, staring out of the bridge window at the expanse of manicured lawn in front of him, and the large house at the end of the drive.

"That's what the listing says. Medori Sati resides here." Hank shook his head. "Pretty."

"Expensive."

"Yeah, pretty tends to be."

"No it don't." Mal straightened up. "Get the others into the cargo bay."

-x-

"You look pretty," Freya said, standing back and admiring the effect.

Grace was wearing a pair of loose pants in a gold colour and a soft red top donated by Inara, which she had managed, with Freya's help, to get on over the casts. Her hair was clean and combed, falling in straight waves down her back.

"I feel odd," Grace said.

"That'll be the effects of the Heretofen," Simon said, standing back and watching her.

"No, I don't mean there," Grace insisted, touching her head. "Here." She touched the area over her heart.

Freya smiled. "Don't worry. I'm here."

-x-

Mal pushed the button and the cargo bay doors opened, the ramp dropping down to the ground. A faint smell of some perfume filtered in, making the normal recycled air taste stale.

"Ready?" he asked Inara, standing next to him.

"No. But let's do this."

They walked out into the sunlight.

-x-

"Inara?" Medori Donato stepped out of the front door and hurried across the lawn. "Inara Serra!" She smiled widely and hugged the other woman. "How did you find me?"

"Medori." Inara closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the feeling for a moment, then disengaged. "How are you?"

Medori laughed. "So formal. And still a Companion, I can tell."

Inara nodded. "Still a Companion."

"And who's this?" She turned to the tall, dark-haired man at Inara's side.

"This is Captain Reynolds. He owns that ship." She nodded towards Serenity.

"I'm pleased to meet you. Any friend of Inara's is a friend of mine." Medori smiled, her face lighting up.

"Ms Sati."

"Come, come inside. We have so much to talk about." She went to lead the way, but Inara hung back.

"Medori …"

"What is it?"

Inara looked back over her shoulder, and Medori followed her gaze.

A girl was walking towards them, leaning awkwardly on crutches, her loose clothing covering but not concealing casts on her left arm and leg. A tall woman with short brown hair was walking next to her, obviously concerned for her, but it was the girl who claimed all of Medori's attention. She had black hair, and as she got closer, the greenest eyes she had ever seen.

"Who …" she began then her hand flew to her mouth.

"Medori, that's your daughter," Inara said.

"Grace?" Medori stared. "Grace!" She ran forward, reaching out. "I'd know it was you anywhere! You look just like your father …"

The girl stared at her, an odd look on her face, and as Medori spoke she felt the world slide away and she was back in the delivery room at the Training House.

"_I want to see her."_

"_No."_

"_She's my daughter. Please … just let me hold her for a minute! Please!"_

"_No. She's not yours. She belongs to the Guild."_

_Medori reached out towards the nurse, but she turned away, hurrying towards the door, clutching the crying bundle in her arms …_

"Grace," Freya said, but the hallucination was already receding.

"You didn't do it on purpose," Grace said softly, her eyes wide with surprise and glued to the older woman. "They made you."

Medori focused on her daughter. "Did you do that?" she asked.

"Medori, I'm sorry," Inara said, but the older woman waved her to silence.

"Your father was psychic," she said gently. "And had the same eyes. I fell in love with those eyes."

Grace stared at her, then collapsed to the ground.

"Grace!" Medori screamed, running towards her, but Mal was quicker. He scooped the young girl up in his arms, Freya close by.

"Where can we –" he began.

"In here." Medori led the way inside quickly, opening a door onto a drawing room, all sunlight and yellow silks. Mal laid Grace on a low sofa, hearing Simon running in behind him. "Is she …" the older woman asked, rubbing her hands together in agitation.

"Doc'll take a look," Mal assured her.

"He's a proper doctor," Inara said, putting her arm around Medori's shoulders. "He's been taking care of her."

There was a moment when everyone waited anxiously, then Simon lifted his head. "She's just fainted. I think this has all been a bit too much for her. Let her rest a while."

"Ms Sati?" Mal asked, moving closer to her. "Is there somewhere we can talk?"

"I don't know –"

"I'll stay with her," Freya said quickly.

"So will I," Simon added.

"Ms Sati, my wife will take good care of her," Mal said firmly. "I want to know why you weren't surprised to see your daughter."

"I was!" Medori insisted.

"You wanna try that again?"

Medori stared at him, then nodded and led the way into the next room. She left the door open.

"Well?" Mal asked.

"You're right." Medori looked at him and he felt the power of the Companion she had once been. Her presence was still electrifying. "I expected her. Just not like this." She reached out and took hold of Inara's hand. "Not with you."

"You found her, didn't you?" Inara asked, holding tight.

Medori nodded, sinking onto the chair behind her. "I never stopped hoping. Even when no-one would talk to me. But when I had money it was a different story. Now I have friends in the Alliance, and when they told me of a girl at a Training House, a Grace Shandu, I knew it was her. Her date of birth, the place … I knew it was her." She looked up, tears in her eyes. "And you've brought her home, as you promised."

"What are you talking about?"

"I didn't know it was you, of course, but I'm so glad." Medori squeezed Inara's hand.

"Medori, I don't understand. We found Grace hurt –"

"Do you mean you're not the people I contracted to bring her here?" She looked from one to the other. "I paid the ship sent to take her to the Alliance to bring her here instead. That isn't you?"

"No," Mal said, glancing at Inara. "It got a bit more complicated than that." He explained, and Medori's face darkened as he spoke.

"Those _hwoon dahn_ … I'll deal with them. They won't get away with this, I can guarantee that," she said, barely controlling the anger inside.

"Good," Mal agreed. "Save us a job."

"It was just luck that took us to that moon, Medori," Inara said. "If we hadn't …"

"Buddha teaches us that nothing is done without reason." She looked at the younger woman. "You were meant to be there, to save my daughter." She stood up, taking Inara into a tight embrace. "And I am so grateful." But Inara was stiff in her arms. "What is it?" she asked, stepping back to look into the Companion's eyes. "What's the matter?"

"Medori, I need to apologise." Inara tried to calm her fast beating heart.

"What for?"

"I never told you. About Alexander. About how he's –"

"Dead? I know." Medori's face cleared. "Oh, Inara, is that what you've been feeling guilty about all this time? I know."

"You ... how?" For once Inara could hardly speak.

"As soon as they put me out of the door and told me never to darken it again I went to a public Cortex link. I found out, Inara. And I grieved." Sadness clouded her face for a moment, a sorrow still so sharp that it cut at Inara's heart. "But life has to go on. Even outside a Guild."

"What did you do?"

"What I was trained for."

Inara was shocked. "You became a whore?"

Medori laughed with relief, wiping decades from her face. "No, Inara. But just because I wasn't allowed to call myself a Companion anymore didn't mean they'd taken away my skills. I started small, working in a bar …" She glanced at Mal. "Full of people like you."

"We kinda get around," he acknowledged with a wry grin.

"But I _listened_. To people, to their problems, and the jobs got better until I was managing a place of my own. Eventually I met Leonard Sati."

"Your husband?"

Medori nodded. "A good man, he came in to talk. Kept coming back. And I liked him. He asked me to marry him. I couldn't say yes until I told him who I was, but he didn't care. He said it was the past, and I was living in the now. I think I fell in love with him a little at that moment." She smiled sadly. "We had twelve good years together before he died eighteen months ago." She looked over towards the other room. "And all that time I've been searching for Grace."

"I'm sorry," Inara said quietly.

"Don't be, Inara. I had two good men who loved me. That's more than some women get in a whole lifetime."

Mal, feeling somewhat uncomfortable, moved back to the door and stood watching Freya with Grace, his thumbs hitched into his gunbelt. The girl had woken up, and Freya was helping her gain control of her emotions.

"You deserve it," Inara said.

"Have you found that special someone yet?" Medori smiled. "I remember those books, the ones you always swore you found by accident. Lurid covers and worse stories, all romance and strong-jawed men coming to the rescue on impossible steeds."

"I'm still a Companion, Medori," she said, trying hard not to glance at Mal.

"And you don't break the rules?"

"No."

"But you'd like to." Medori's talents were still razor sharp. "Except he's someone else's?" she added as a murmur.

"Even if I wanted I couldn't have him," Inara breathed as quietly.

"I'm sorry."

The younger woman smiled, if a little shakily. "Don't be. He's infuriating, intensely annoying and incredibly obstinate, but he's my friend."

Medori nodded in satisfaction. "Good. That's something even more precious."

"I still wish it was me," Inara added inaudibly, but Medori squeezed her shoulder tightly.

"Ms Sati?" Mal looked back over his shoulder at them. "Grace wants to see you."

Medori hurried into the yellow room. Her daughter was sitting up, somewhat awkwardly because of the casts, but looking at her.

"Grace?" Her mother came to a halt, unsure what to do next.

"I thought you'd abandoned me. All my life that's what they told me, that I was alone in the world except for the Guild." Grace looked at her, the green eyes holding back tears.

"I didn't abandon you. I didn't want to leave you. I even named you, although I wasn't ever allowed to call you by it."

"Not Grace?"

"Alexa. After your father. Alexander."

"What was he like?"

"A good man. A decent man, who I treated badly. Yet he loved me enough to find me."

"And all that …you went through that for him?"

"Oh, Grace, I loved him. I still do."

"And me?"

Medori sat down carefully on the settee next to her. "I wanted more than anything to hold you in my arms and take care of you." She let the tears she'd been holding back slide down her cheeks.

"But they wouldn't let you. I saw."

Medori nodded. "Is that part of your gift?"

"Freya's been trying to teach me to control it," the girl said, looking up at the woman in question. "But it's hard. I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't even know I had it until …" She swallowed.

"Until?" her mother prompted.

"Until I found the book."

"What book?"

"I don't know what it's called. But it listed your infringements …"

Medori laid her hand carefully on her daughter's. "Then I know what it is. And I can imagine what they wrote in it." She sighed. "And that's why you wanted to find me? To punish me?"

"At first."

"Oh, my _wu jia zhi bao_, you couldn't punish me any more than they did."

"And I wanted to give this back to you." Grace reached into her pocket and held out the metal tab, the demerit.

"Where did you get that?" Medori asked, wiping the tears from her face leaving smears of black.

"I found it under my bed when I was packing. It must have fallen from the book."

"It isn't mine."

"What?" Grace looked confused, then stared at the tab. "It must be. It has 9503 on it. The number of the infringement."

"Someone must have been using it as a book mark. Grace, I have mine here." She reached inside her dress and pulled out a thin silver chain on which hung an identical tag. "Leonard, my husband, said I should never be ashamed of it. That it reminded me of the man who loved me, and that the Guild don't know everything. He said he was grateful to them, otherwise he'd never have known me. Or loved me."

"He loved you?"

"I love you more."

With those simple words Grace felt her heart open, and she fell into her mother's arms, all the pain she'd been feeling melting away.

"Hush, I'm here," Medori said, stroking her long dark hair. "I'm not going anywhere ever again."

Freya watched the mother and daughter, conflicted by the emotions within. Mal put his arm around her waist, drawing her close, trying to let her know he understood just by the warmth of his body.

Medori let Grace cry, then looked up at Mal. "What do we do now?" she asked.

"They won't be looking for Grace here," he said. "Doubt it would ever occur to them to even consider it. But it might be best if you leave a while. Those _hwoon dahn _who left your daughter on that moon ain't likely to talk, and if they do everyone'll assume she didn't survive, but just to be on the safe side."

She nodded. "For a while. We can travel." She looked down into her daughter's face, smoothing away a lock of hair. "I can show you so many worlds, so many things …"

There was delight in the girl's eyes, but also trepidation. "But I … I hurt people."

"If your talents hadn't woken, I'd never have found you. If they hadn't wanted to take you to that school …" Medori stopped, surprised by the sudden trembling in her daughter. "What is it?"

Grace took a deep breath, tapping into the control Freya had given her. "Nothing. I'll tell you later."

Medori couldn't help smiling as she spoke of 'later'. Of there being a 'later' worth having.

"Here," Simon said, reaching into his medbag and holding out a small case. "This might help. It contains twelve doses of Heretofen. It will stop the … Grace's abilities. When you need it."

"Thank you," Medori said, bowing slightly as she took the box. "But I don't think we'll need them. We'll learn how to control her gift together."

-x-

Serenity took off from the sunshine of Athens back into the black, Hank setting a course to Persephone and the possibility of a job, Zoe at his shoulder making sure he did it right.

Freya was sitting in the cargo bay, staring at nothing much when Inara stepped out of her shuttle. She looked down at the other woman, aware of an aura of sadness around her. She knew what Freya was thinking about – the way Grace had said goodbye, crying at leaving but so happy at finding her mother.

"She'll be all right," she said.

Freya looked up. "I know."

"Then why are you unhappy?" She walked down the stairs and joined her.

"I miss her." Three simple words that spoke volumes.

Inara nodded. "She's an amazing girl. Medori's very lucky."

"That she is. She gets the chance to be with her lost daughter."

"And you don't?" Freya didn't answer, but Inara watched as she absently touched her stomach. "She cared about you," the Companion went on quickly. "Grace."

"Alexa." Freya smiled a little. "I like that name. Actually I think it suits her more."

"No. Grace is better."

"At least she can choose." Freya sighed, then lifted her head, looking at her friend. "Are you really considering leaving the Guild?"

Inara stared at her. "Did Mal –"

"No. Are you?"

"I … haven't decided."

"When you do, whatever you decide, I'll be there for you. So will Mal. We all will."

"Thank you."

"And when you want to talk about it, whatever it is, I'll listen."

Inara was surprised, and grateful. "Thanks. I mean that."

"It's what families do." Freya stood up. "Do you know where Mal is?"

"I'm not sure," Inara admitted.

"Think I'll go find him." She smiled and headed for the stairs, Inara watching as she climbed towards the living area, but her mind was elsewhere …

"_If we let you return, Inara, you do realise the consequences?"_

_She looked at the Triumvirate, sitting behind their high desk, gazing down at her. "I do."_

"_There will be no turning back. No third chance."_

"_I understand," she said, her head high. "I want to come back. I want to be a Companion again."_

"_Very well. We will consider our verdict and inform you as soon as a decision has been made."_

_She nodded, turning on her heel and walking out of the door, her hand absently stroking the mound at her waist._


	8. Epilogue Found

He woke up, as he always did, before the alarm went. He'd always known when it was time to wake up, ever since he was a kid, and had to go help with the cattle. He could guarantee to be lying there, staring into the dark, two minutes before his mother yelled at him.

He rolled over, putting his hand out to touch his wife, but there was nothing but empty space and cold sheets. Opening his eyes he looked around the small bunk but it was conspicuous for its emptiness.

With a sigh he swung his legs out of bed and grabbed his pants.

"Morning, captain," Zoe said as he climbed out of the hatch.

"Morning. You seen Frey?"

"Not yet." She looked him up and down, wearing only his pants and nothing else. "She running away from you again, sir?"

"Your turn to make breakfast, isn't it?" he asked in turn, ignoring her comment.

"Just on my way now."

"Good." Mal turned down the side corridor and headed for the cargo bay.

Zoe smiled and shook her head. Since he'd gone and gotten himself hitched he'd changed. For the better, she considered, but it was sometimes a shock to see him so … caring.

Jayne was in the cargo bay, working out. "Couldn't sleep?" he asked as Mal came down the stairs. "Me neither."

"Looking for Frey."

"She run off again?" Jayne exhaled and pushed the weights above his head. "Musta been seeing you in just your pants."

"Have you seen her?" Mal asked, trying to maintain his dignity.

"Nope. Been here a while, too."

"Captain," River said, startling him.

He looked up to the top of the crates where she sat, Jayne's ever-present shadow. "Doesn't anyone sleep on this boat?"

"She's in there," the girl said, pointing towards the common area.

"Thank you." He marched off, hitching his suspenders over his shoulders.

Jayne dropped the weights back into their stand and looked at River. "They okay?" he asked.

"They're shiny. And they will be even better. Soon." She smiled enigmatically.

-x-

He found her outside the nursery, just looking inside at Bethany sleeping peacefully.

"Hey, whatcha doing?" he asked, stepping close behind her.

Freya leaned back just a little to feel his warmth. "Just looking."

"Somehow I get the impression that weren't all you were doing." He put his arms around her waist and pulled her in tight. "Thinking about Grace."

"I know it's crazy, and I should maybe grow up, but I can't help wanting …" She hugged herself.

"He ain't right." Mal said softly. "Simon ain't right. I don't care what he says, all the tests he ran, he ain't right. There's no way you and I are not gonna have a child."

"But he's so sure."

"No buts." He turned her around to look at him, seeing the want, the need in her eyes. "Whatever I have to do … Frey, I can't bear to see you unhappy."

"I'm not unhappy," she insisted, her hands on his bare chest.

"But …" He gazed into her eyes. "There's a 'but' hanging around there somewhere."

"I don't want there to be."

"Don't mean there ain't."

She closed her eyes a moment. "What Grace did, what I saw …" A tear squeezed out from under her lids. "I managed to forget so much. All the pain at the Academy, what they did to me …" She looked at him again and more tears slid down her cheeks. "I've never told you."

"You don't have to. But if you need, I'll listen."

"Not yet," she said, shivering slightly. "Too much darkness… I don't want to make you stop loving me."

"Frey, darlin', ain't nothing in this 'verse gonna stop me lovin' you."

"But maybe I shouldn't … it wasn't just the Academy, but there's darkness inside me, and I'm so afraid I'm gonna pass that on to our child that it …" She stopped, burying her face in his chest, letting out all the frustration and want in tears.

"Hey, hush now," Mal said, rocking her gently. "Our baby is gonna have two loving parents, and there's gonna be no darkness." He lifted her chin, wiping the tears away with his thumbs before cupping her face. "And there ain't no darkness in you either. No more'n anyone else. And I include Jayne in that statement."

She couldn't help but smile. "Are you likening me to him?"

"Never," he said, grimacing. "No way I'm taking that man into my bed ever again."

"Again?" Her eyebrows lifted. "Is there something I need to know about?"

"Nothing," Mal said quickly, his lips twitching. "At least nothing that a good bottle of whisky and two glasses isn't gonna get out of me."

"I'll hold you to that," she said, snuggling against him again.

He felt his body react to her, as it always did, his blood beginning to pump harder around his veins. "Frey, I promise you this. There will come a time, and soon, when you'll be lying next to me in bed and I'll be feeling our child kicking me. And I'll be the happiest man in the 'verse." He grinned. "Which, by the way, I am anyway."

She smiled. "You promise?"

"What, that I'm the happiest man alive?"

"That we'll have a baby."

"Nothing in the 'verse is gonna stop us."

"Thank you."

"What for?"

"Putting up with me."

"Nothin' to put up with. You're my wife."

"Is that the only reason?"

"I'll tell you when we wake up."

"We are awake."

"I'm considering we're gonna have a lie in today. A _long_ lie-in."

"Sounds good." She pushed her hand down the back of his pants. "Are you wearing anything under there?"

"Why don't we got back to bed and you can find out?


End file.
